Given that, surely it is in the long-term interest of the state to do what it can to prepare individuals leaving prison to make a successful and enduring transition into society. Merely opening the gates and waving people through them with a directive to check in with their parole officers isn't likely to accomplish that consistently.

Earlier this year, the state opened a transition center for female parolees on the grounds of the former J.S. Tarwater mental health facility in Wetumpka, just a few hundred yards from the gates of the Tutwiler prison, Alabama's only prison for women. The promise shown by that center, known as L.I.F.E. Tech, has prompted the Department of Pardons and Paroles to propose establishing transition centers for male parolees, who greatly outnumber female parolees.

The proposed centers are in three former mental health facilities in Thomasville, Decatur and Tarrant. The cost of renovating these facilities and operating them is considerably less than the cost of incarcerating inmates.

"In the short term, it's cheaper than having these people in the prison system," said Bill Segrest, director of the parole board. "In the long run, the recidivism rate is going to be lower. They're not going to come back."

Of course, that's the whole idea. If an individual can be prepared through the extensive counseling and job training of a transition center to function in law-abiding society, he or she stands a much better chance of becoming a productive, tax-paying citizen. The individual is better off, to be sure, but so is society itself.

"It's so much better for those offenders to go through L.I.F.E. Tech than be handed $10 and suit and be told to sin no more," said Rosa Davis, chief assistant attorney general and a member of the Alabama Sentencing Commission. "If the issue is public safety, you are so much safer when somebody has been through a transition center."

These facilities are a sensible investment the state should make.